What Lurks In The Dark
by Adoradork
Summary: New York is a long way behind them now. As the crew of the spaceship Honour's Blade, Leonardo and his brothers transport weaponry and supplies through Kraang blockaded star systems, to aid the rebellion against the Kraang. It's a dangerous job, but at least they are all together, right? (Cover art by the lovely NeapolitanKitty!)
1. Chapter 1

The _Honour's Blade_ shuddered as a plasma blast slammed into the hull. Leonardo guided the ship into a vertical pitch to dodge the hail of torpedoes coming their way. His fingers tingled as adrenaline rushed through his body. How had this happened? This system was supposed to be neutral. There should not have been a Kraang squadron waiting for them. One more jump, one more short jump and they would have been back at the rebel base.

The cramped, tiny bridge seemed to close in around him. He struggled to keep his breathing steady as he pulled the ship out of her dive to avoid a burst of plasma fire. The internal commlink on his headset crackled. "Do you think you could throw us around a bit more?" Raphael shouted. "Because it's not hard enough to hit them already!"

"Barrel roll! Barrel roll!" Mikey whooped, his exuberant shout slightly muffled by the comms.

The juddering boom of the side-mounted ion cannon drowned out Raphael's reply. One of the blips on Leonardo's screen became a haze. No time to stop and admire Mikey's marksmanship. Leo banked the ship into a ventral dive, turning the broad side to their enemy, the side with the heaviest armour and also Raphael with the other ion cannon. Another thunderous rumble echoed through the hull, but the five blips on his screen didn't change.

"You forgot the time delay, Raph! You got to-"

"Shut the fuck up, Mikey!"

Leo wished both his brothers would shut up so he could focus. Two of the remaining five Kraang ships were moving to flank them. He swallowed, his mouth dry. "Donnie, how's that jump going?" To his left, Donnie tapped frantically at his console, keying in the calculations for a hyperspace jump that would, hopefully, take them out of the reach of the Kraang.

"I'm working on it." Donnie snapped. His fingers flew across the keypad as he scrambled to enter the coordinates for the jump.

Leo flung the _Honour's Blade_ into a low-radius turn, tight as she would go, hoping to get out of the Kraang trap before it closed around them. Too late. He saw the bright heat signature incoming on his screen and pulled out of the turn, but out here with no gravity well to push against it was slow, too slow. "Brace!" he shouted into his headset.

The _Honour's Blade_ shuddered as the barrage hit, lights flickering, klaxons screaming a warning. "Donnie, can you kill those?"

"Sure, Leo. They're not important," Donnie said, his face tense.

Leo ignored his sarcastic tone. "Any imminent failures?"

"Only the reactor." Donnie flung up his hands. "Way to go, Leo. Turn the ship so the area with the engine takes the hit."

Leo gritted his teeth. "It was that or the ventral hull, and last time I looked we needed air."

"Well we fucking need the engine too, you dumbass." Donatello leaped out of his chair and bolted for the hatch.

"Donnie, wait! What about the jump calculations?" Leo's heart hammered in his chest. "We need to get out of here."

"It only needs the acceleration value." Donnie hauled the hatch open and disappeared up the ladder.

"Don't go, Donnie, I need you to-"

Donnie's voice came over the headset. "Work it out, Leo."

Leo wanted to shout at him to get back and finish the jump calculations, but Donnie had stopped listening to him months ago and he knew it would be a fruitless exercise. He rubbed the sweat off his face and glanced at Donnie's console. He could do the calculations, but not while he was also trying to avoid being vapourised. "Raph, I need you in here!"

There didn't seem to be enough air on the bridge. He forced himself to breathe slowly and focused on his screen. Another blast rocked the ship. They were surrounded, but there was a small hole in the Kraang's formation where the ship Mikey had destroyed would have been. That would have to do. He threw the ship into a steep dive, cutting through the z-plane. "Mikey! I'm giving you a target!"

Leo felt himself lifting off the seat, held down only by his harness. "Gravity system offline," flashed on to his screen. Raphael crawled through the hatch, cursing as he floated. He pushed off the wall toward his chair.

"Donnie where's our gravity?" Leo said into his headset.

Donnie didn't answer. Raphael strapped himself into his seat.

"Keep on this heading," Leo said to Raphael. "Mikey's going to clear a path for us." He transferred helm control to Raph's console and pulled up the navigation screen. The _Honour's Blade _trembled as Mikey fired at the Kraang ship in front of them, but their armour absorbed the blast.

"We're not going to get through." said Raphael.

"Make us get through," Leo said, trying to estimate mass and propulsion and gravitational influence, nearly impossible when they were dodging fire. Jumps were meant to happen under controlled circumstances, not in the middle of a battle. But they needed to get out of here before the Kraang got lucky and punched a hole in their hull.

The ship lurched. The overhead lights went out.

"Donnie what are you doing?" said Leo. No answer. "Donnie?"

Donnie's voice snarled in his ear. "I need to divert power to the propulsion system or we won't be going anywhere."

Leo focused on the calculations. He had to trust his brothers to do what they needed to do. He entered the acceleration value, hoping desperately he was close enough. An alarm blared, a red warning flashing on his screen. Oxygen tanks offline. Leo's screen flickered off and back on.

"Are you kidding me, Donnie?" Raphael shouted over comms. "I have no helm control!"

On his screen, a mass of lights advanced on their ship. Kraang torpedoes. They were out of time. Leo took a deep breath and activated the hyperjump.


	2. Chapter 2

Reality crashed back in around them, accompanied by the deafening wail of the warning klaxon. In the red glare of emergency lights the cockpit looked smaller than ever. Leonardo floated in his seat, held down only by the harness. He ran his tongue over his teeth, wanting to spit out the taste of dust in his mouth. Psychosomatic, Donnie always said, with a dismissive gesture. But every jump made Leo feel like he had swallowed a lungful of ash. Raphael was still strapped in, shaking his head, dealing with his own post-jump issues.

Leonardo shut off the klaxon. A message in glaring red obscured his screen. _Oxygen scrubbers offline. Reserve tanks at 89%._ Eighty-nine percent meant they had a leak somewhere. It meant limited time to repair and get themselves to the nearest rebel-friendly base. Leo spoke into his headset. "Mikey? Don? Acknowledge."

"Blargh," said Mikey over comms. "I think I'm gonna hurl." Standard issue Mikey response post-jump, so Leo ignored it.

"Don? Donnie. Acknowledge." The seconds stretched out, bringing with them a flicker of fear in his gut. He tapped at his screen, checking to see if the engine room was intact. It was. But still no answer from Donnie.

"I'll go down." Raphael unclipped his harness and pushed himself toward the door.

Leonardo nodded. He remembered a blast rocking them before the jump. A quick scan of the hull showed impacts everywhere. They must have run into a torpedo swarm. But what happened to the shields? Offline, said the readout. A large, red area covered the hull at the rear of the ship.

"Donnie, respond," he said again, a fruitless exercise if Don was injured, or-

"I'm here, dammit. Stop calling me, I'm trying to stabilise the reactor."

Leo breathed out in a rush which turned into a hiss as he gritted his teeth. Donnie was fine, he just hadn't thought it worth the effort to let his brothers know. Fine, Donnie. Be angry with me. But you still have two other brothers. He pushed the thought away. "Did you hear that, Raph?"

"I heard. Coming back."

Raph pulled himself through the hatch, Mikey right behind him, and they settled into their seats. Leo rubbed his arms. He went through the readouts on his screen. Oxygen scrubbers offline. Heat generators offline. He hadn't been imagining the chill in the room, then. Gravity offline. Internal power offline. The only things still working, as far as he could see, were systems and the engine.

He mentally braced himself and spoke into his headset. "Don, I need a status report. Life support is offline, I need to know how long-"

"When I'm done, that's how long. I need all the power we have left. Now leave me alone."

"Well, someone's bitchy today," Michelangelo said into the silence.

No one smiled. Leo kept his eyes on his screen, his expression neutral. He'd been trying so hard to keep their interactions civil, to not trigger arguments in the cramped conditions aboard ship where none of them could get any real privacy. In the last few weeks he and Donnie had settled into politely ignoring each other, which was almost worse than the fights. He rubbed at his face. The cracks were beginning to show.

Leonardo pushed down the sour taste in the back of his throat. He needed to focus on their situation. Maybe they could send a distress signal. "Mikey, can you open comms and see if there is anyone close enough to pick us up?"

"Sure!" Mikey fiddled with his console while Leo searched for some power he could divert to life support. Donnie might prioritise the propulsion system, but mobility was no good if they didn't have enough air to get home. He should order Donnie to divert some power to life support. But ordering Donnie to do anything lately was an exercise in futility.

"So," said Mikey. "Where exactly are we?"

Leo looked up. "We should have come out near the Kitalpha system."

Mikey spun his chair around to face Leo. "Well if we did, it's awfully quiet out there."

Leo pulled up the navigation screen, and stared at the unfamiliar star field. "What the-" He keyed in the location finder.

_Location unknown_.

No. He extended the search out to a nearby star, shifting their field of view.

_Location unknown_.

A prickle of worry ran up his neck. He set the nav comp up to search in their visible radius, looking for a familiar star.

"Well?" said Mikey.

Leo bit his lip. They couldn't be lost. They were just outside normal range, that was all. He realised Mikey and Raphael had swung around to face him. "I'm running a location search."

"Which means we're lost," said Raphael, folding his arms. "Did something go wrong with the jump?"

"It must have." Leo went back through the moments before the jump. Rolling to avoid the torpedoes. Donnie running out. Calculating the acceleration value. He pulled up the calculations and went over them. He couldn't see anything obviously wrong. And then the impact, just before the jump. Had it damaged the jump computer?

"I need to talk to Donnie."

Raph grunted and turned away. "Yeah, have fun with that."

Leo unclipped his harness and pushed off to the door. He should stay here and talk to Donnie over comms. But things were tense enough. He'd rather have this conversation face to face, where maybe he could read Donnie's cues and avoid another vicious argument. "Helm is yours, Raphael."

"Yippee," said Raph. But he waved a hand to Leo as he exited the cockpit.


End file.
